Executive Group Travel Blog

Airline Review; JetBlue, the perfect incentive partner

[fa icon="clock-o"] Nov 27, 2015 1:19:00 PM [fa icon="user"] Marci McCormack


Customer Service Win:

This review is with no bias just from personal experiences of a travel coordinator who struggles year after year to find the perfect flight options at a reasonable price and with least stops possible. It’s not an easy task when there’s limited daily flights and only one direct option each day.

The ladies at the JetBlue groups desk make this process bearable and over the years it’s refreshing to speak to the same women month after month. When Becky or Linda answers the phone, you know it will be a good experience.

 


JetBlue Flight Block:

Some bonuses of booking with JetBlue for group flight blocks, only $50 deposit required per ticket, 1 free checked bag included, 10% can be released before final deposit at 60 days for no penalty, 10% can be changed up until 72 hours before, unlimited name changes until 72 hours before flight departure. The 10% is usually taken off the entire group booking, not each specific confirmation number. And the best part! You talk to real people and they understand what you are trying to accomplish and they don’t try to trick you or make your life harder. As a travel agent or meeting planner you are awarded 1 travel certificate for every 40 seats booked. This helps compensate many travel agents for their hours of flight organization given there is no commissions in flight bookings.

Only complaint, the flight agreement you sign at deposit is so frustrating! JetBlue Meetings please just send us an attachment, the agreement within an email chain makes printing a nightmare.   Also the agreement terms on deviation are still a little vague, from the contract is appears deviation essentially means anything, location, date, etc but from conversation is appears the deviation needs to happen within a week before or after the event date.

JetBlue.jpg

After working with JetBlue to book over 100 seats on one plane we decided to look at some options for alternate airlines to split up the remaining group. Remember the more seats you book on one flight the higher the price. The airline needs to cover its revenue for that flight so booking a one way ticket for 1 adult might be $260 but booking 100 seats can drive that price up to $380 per person.   Also there’s a risk of having all company employees on one flight so many people look at alternate options. One night I explored the alternate options and it was near the worst experience I have ever had in airlines customer service.

Having status on AA for the past few years I started there, the women who answered the phone must have been having a bad day as she refused to explain to me AA’s process and instead told me to just read the website. Then asked what flight can I quote you for? Well I wasn’t sure since the policy is confusing since the US Airways merge. Finally I asked her if I caught her at a bad time and if everything was okay. That seemed to change her tune and things started luckily turning around. She then explained that JetBlue is definitely the better airline to partner with because of their policy and AA inventory recently has been tough. The flights we were paying $400 one way for on JetBlue was over $800 on AA.

Next call was to United as they had a few options with one stop. Just to get a number to the right group was a process. Once I was directed to the right person the process was frustrating, long and confusing. The woman struggled to explain how their flight block worked and just was not happy to be doing her job. After 45 minutes on the phone to get 3 simple quotes I hung up and realized how much I appreciated hearing Linda or Becky answer at JetBlue, the similar process takes about 8-10 minutes with JetBlue.

 



More Flights Please:

 Is JetBlue perfect? No. We would love them to increase their midweek flights to Caribbean destinations in season but currently it’s definitely the best experience I’ve had. I cringe at the thought that JetBlue does not fly to some of next year’s destinations.